Technology for a new business — what to buy in week zero, and what can wait

We recommend buying technology for a new business in the order events actually happen, not in one order in the first week. In week zero you need a name, a domain and mail on that domain. The first client requires an invoice and a place online where they can find you. The first enquiries call for one place to log contacts, and the first employee calls for shared accounts. The brand — logo, brand guidelines, a registered trade mark — can in our view wait until the market has answered the offer.

Most of these items are cheap or free. In our study of SaaS tool costs, the biggest line in the yearly bill of a one-person firm with a brochure site is human time, not software. This page sets the buying order and, at every stage, links to the article that covers it in detail. We checked amounts and dates on 2 October 2026 unless a different date is given next to a figure.

Before you start: registration in one paragraph

Registering a sole proprietorship is free and does not hold up your start. The biznes.gov.pl page Register a business in CEIDG (read 2 October 2026) says: "Złożenie wniosku o wpis do CEIDG jest BEZPŁATNE!" (filing an application to the Central Register and Information on Economic Activity, CEIDG, is free). The entry is made "no later than the next working day after the application arrives", and you can start trading "on the day you file". According to the biznes.gov.pl guide for people starting a firm, one application also prepares the notification to ZUS (the Social Insurance Institution) or KRUS (the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund), GUS (Statistics Poland) and the tax office; if you don't have the numbers yet, the NIP (tax ID) is added to the entry within 1 working day and the REGON (statistical number) within 7 days. You sign the application with a Profil Zaufany (Trusted Profile), which the same page calls "a free tool". Costs start with contributions. The start relief (ulga na start) waives social contributions for six full months, but biznes.gov.pl notes that during that time you "will not receive the benefits that come with sickness insurance" and that the relief period "does not count towards the contribution record". We spell out the ZUS and health contribution amounts, the VAT exemption threshold of PLN 240,000 and the cash-register rules in how much it costs to start a business.

Week zero: name, domain, mail

The first week is three decisions worth making immediately. Your name, your web address and your e-mail address end up on every invoice and every business card, so changing any of them later costs more than getting them right now.

Name. A sole proprietorship's name must contain at least your first name and surname (biznes.gov.pl), and any fanciful part of it needs checking. The biznes.gov.pl page on the business name (read 2 October 2026) advises checking before you start that no other firm, Polish or foreign, already uses your chosen name in the same or a similar line of business, by searching the entrepreneurs' search engine in CEIDG and the National Court Register (KRS, Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy). It adds: you can also check that the name is not a registered trade mark. How to think about competitors from the customer's side is in our article on the business model; the trade-mark databases the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (UPRP, Urząd Patentowy RP) points to are listed in logo design.

Domain. Registering a .pl domain usually costs PLN 59–99 gross for the first year, and renewal has a market median of PLN 110–130 gross a year (prices from August 2026; details and sources in web hosting cost). The same article shows, from NASK documentation, that your site and mail stop working on the day the domain expires, with no grace period. Turn on auto-renewal from day one.

Mail. An address on your own domain stays with you if you switch provider; an @gmail.com address doesn't. A mailbox costs from PLN 3.87 to PLN 31.50 net a month according to our study (data of 25–26 August 2026, euro converted at PLN 4.30; the top figure is Google Workspace Business Starter with an annual commitment). More important than the price are the DNS records: Google requires (read 2 October 2026) that, since 1 February 2024, every sender writing to personal Gmail accounts has SPF or DKIM configured — including a one-person business. Where a mailbox can live and how to set those records up is in business email. How to secure the mailbox, including a second sign-in factor, is in protecting company data.

First client: an invoice, and a place where they can find you

At the first client, a business needs two things: an invoice issued in KSeF (the National e-Invoicing System, Krajowy System e-Faktur) and somewhere online the client can check it out. The Ministry of Finance sets out the dates on When you have to issue invoices in KSeF (read 2 October 2026): the duty applied from 1 February 2026 to firms whose 2024 sales exceeded PLN 200 million including VAT, and from 1 April 2026 to everyone else. Until 31 December 2026 you may still issue invoices outside KSeF if the monthly total of sales including VAT on such invoices does not exceed PLN 10,000. From 1 January 2027 KSeF applies to everyone.

Legal form makes no difference. According to the Ministry, invoices in KSeF are issued by "every taxpayer (VAT-registered and exempt) who is obliged to issue an invoice", so this covers a one-person firm exempt from VAT too. You receive purchase invoices through KSeF from 1 February 2026. Invoices to consumers can be issued in KSeF voluntarily. Paid software is not a condition: "No. The Ministry of Finance provides free tools" (Ministry of Finance), namely the KSeF Taxpayer Application and the KSeF Mobile App. According to the same Ministry page for sole traders and SMEs, you can also use KSeF through e-mikrofirma in the e-Tax Office (e-Urząd Skarbowy). What free and paid programs offer and what an invoice must contain is in invoicing software. Invoices are only part of bookkeeping: how to choose accounting software for the tax book or flat-rate records, and from when records must be kept in a program, is covered separately.

The second matter is being findable. How to set up and run a business listing is covered in our guide to the Google Business Profile, and when a simple site is enough — and what has to be on it — in brochure website. If the site has a contact form, it needs a data-processing notice too; what belongs in it is in the GDPR information duty on a website.

First enquiries: where to log the client

Before you buy a customer-management system, log every enquiry in one place: who asked, when, about what, and what the next step is. Enquiries arrive by e-mail, phone and web form, so without a shared log a client's history ends up scattered across channels. In our view a paid CRM earns its place once that log stops being enough — because by then there's actually something to organise.

Prices are per seat. In our study (price lists of 26 August 2026), Livespace costs PLN 79 net per seat a month on monthly billing, Firmao PLN 69 net on an annual plan (PLN 93 monthly), and Pipedrive from €14 on annual billing. When a CRM is actually worth it, and how to choose one, is covered in CRM for a small business.

Where the next enquiries come from is a separate question. The order of marketing activities is set out in our guide to internet marketing, visibility in search in the article on SEO for your website, acquisition channels in advertising your business online, and collecting reviews in Google reviews.

First employee: shared accounts

With a second person in the business come shared calendars, shared files, and the need for an account to belong to the business rather than to the employee. That's the point to buy an office suite. Google Workspace Business Starter costs PLN 31.50 net per user a month with an annual commitment and PLN 37.80 without one (read 2 October 2026). Microsoft 365 Business Basic costs €6.07 net with an annual commitment and €7.28 billed monthly; the European Economic Area edition without Teams runs €4.67 on the annual commitment. Microsoft's Polish store quotes its prices in euro. Both vendors sell these plans for up to 300 users.

The differences in storage, desktop apps, meetings and AI are covered in our comparison, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Who should have access to what, and how to close an account when someone leaves, is in protecting company data. Once repetitive tasks start eating into the team's time, the first automation examples — including handling incoming invoices — are in business process automation.

Brand: when a logo, when brand guidelines

In our order, the brand is the last stage, because its cost only makes sense once you know the offer is landing with clients. Before that, a vetted name from week zero is enough. Once the market responds, start with a logo that comes with rights: a delivered file is not the same as a transfer of rights, so set the assignment out in the contract (how it must be done depends on the member state), and elements from Canva's library (other than fonts) can't be used in a trade mark under its licence. We cover this in logo design. After that, write down the rules for using the mark — variants, clear space, minimum size, colours, typefaces. What that document looks like is in brand guidelines.

Registering a trade mark at the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland (UPRP) costs from PLN 890 for one class when filed online. That is our own arithmetic from the UPRP site (read 2 October 2026): PLN 400 for an electronic application and PLN 90 for publication under the application fee table, plus PLN 400 for the first ten-year protection period, without a patent attorney and without the PLN 17 stamp duty on a power of attorney. An EU trade mark costs €850 at EUIPO — the basic fee for an online filing in one class (read 2 October 2026).

Buy now, buy later: the table

The table collects the items from the sections above in purchase order. Subscription, package and official-fee amounts are net or outside VAT; domain and hosting prices are given as in the article on domains and hosting.

The first year of technology can be priced up front. In our study of SaaS tool costs, scenario S1 — a brochure site and one person — costs PLN 3,200 net a year. According to the study, "77% of the bill is human time, not software": site care is PLN 2,400, and the four tool items together cost PLN 697. One decision moves the result most: Zoho Mail Lite instead of Google Workspace lowers S1 to PLN 2,869. We collected the data on 25–26 August 2026 at 1 EUR = PLN 4.30. A domain with hosting that you run yourself costs PLN 310–430 a year according to the article on domains and hosting. You can price your own case in our maintenance cost calculator.

Articles in this section

• How much does it cost to start a business: registration for PLN 0, start relief, preferential ZUS and Small ZUS Plus (Mały ZUS Plus), the health contribution, the PLN 240,000 VAT threshold, the cash register and a worked example of the first 12 months.
• Business email: three places a mailbox can live, prices from PLN 3.87 to 31.50 a month, SPF/DKIM/DMARC records and step-by-step setup.
• Google Workspace or Microsoft 365: Workspace from PLN 31.50 with an annual commitment (PLN 37.80 without), Microsoft 365 from €6.07 (€7.28 on a monthly commitment), storage, desktop apps, meetings and AI.
• Invoicing software: the KSeF dates and the PLN 10,000 exception, the free Ministry of Finance apps, what an invoice must contain, and free versus paid program plans.
• Accounting software: which records your form of taxation requires, from when the tax book and flat-rate records must be kept in a program, what self-service bookkeeping costs at the vendors, and when an accounting office is the better choice.
• Business model: the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and building a persona from real conversations.
• Brand guidelines: what published brand guidelines actually contain, and how to write the core of one for a small company.
• Logo design: copyright and the designer's contract, a logo from Canva or an AI generator, registration at UPRP and EUIPO, and the files you'll need for a favicon and company profiles.